The TTK Group is stealing a high-tech march over rival condom-makers, as it looks to regain a leadership position that quickly eroded after the group lost the rights to make Durex brand of condoms a little over a year ago.
The Chennai-based condom maker has embraced the push towards technology, and has partnered with a creative digital agency that has churned out a new app strategy, as a means of reducing transaction times and the difficulty that comes with purchasing a condom.
This, according to Vishal Vyas, General Manager, Marketing, TTK Protective Devices Ltd., will help the group’s one-year-old SKORE condom brand achieve 10 per cent market share by the end of the financial year.
It currently has a little over 8 per cent share, in a market dominated by established names such as Mankind Pharma’s Manforce and Raymond Ltd.’s Kama Sutra. “When customers go to buy condoms, it’s still quite embarrassing for everybody involved. The time a customer takes to make the purchase is basically under a minute. So, even if he is loyal to one brand, he is likely to take whatever brand the retailer gives him and get out of the store as quick as possible,” said Mr. Vyas, in an interaction on Friday.
The group’s new smartphone application, SKORE, looks to solve the problem of customer fickleness by coming with a store locator that allows users to locate retailers that carry SKORE condoms within a certain kilometre radius.
After a dispute triggered the exit of partner Reckitt Benckiser Group in late 2012, the Rs. 2,500-crore group lost the rights to make Reckitt’s Durex and Kohinoor brands, with its profits declining for a number of quarters after that.
Much of TTK’s two billion condoms per year production capacity now lie underutilised as a result of Reckitt’s exit. According to officials, the company is in talks with several companies regarding the possibility of going into third-party manufacturing as a means of increasing utilisation.
